


Validate Me?

by SpangleBangle



Series: Thominho Week 2016 [2]
Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: AND SO MANY PUNS, Alternate Universe - Laboratory, Alternate Universe - Scientists, Day 2 - Firsts, Falling In Love, First Night Shift, M/M, Meet-Cute, Thominho Week 2016, and terrible lab jokes, happy fluff, nerd flirting, this was such an excuse to express all the awful puns I come up with at work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 09:31:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7262515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpangleBangle/pseuds/SpangleBangle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Day 2 - Firsts.</p><p>Thomas switches to night shifts at his job in a hospital haematology lab. He doesn't expect the only other night-worker to be such a goofy idiot, though. Oh no. He might be in trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Validate Me?

_Oh God._ Thomas looked at the schedule list for the night and wanted to scream. Nothing like a jam-packed, busy shift full of fast-turnarounds and urgent samples for your first night shift in the hospital lab. _Kill me now._

He rubbed his eyes blearily; to try and shake up his circadian rhythms to last him through the night, he’d stayed up all the previous night watching action movies and then slept through the day. It would definitely take some getting used to, and at the moment his eye sockets felt lined with sandpaper. A quick check of his watch revealed he had ten minutes to get to the lab for his 10pm to 7am shift.

He hauled ass and made it through the door just before 10pm, sliding through after the technicians and scientists clocking out with exhausted yawns. He got his coat and gloves on and waited for his training partner to show up. He wasn’t disappointed as soon another man turned up. Thomas felt himself start to sweat – _what the fuck was this guy’s name again?_ They’d passed each other in the lab a few times, definitely said hi… but Thomas couldn’t recall his name. _Shit._

“Hey,” the man waved as he buttoned up his own coat. “You must be Thomas, right? First night shift?”

“Yeah,” Thomas replied with a friendly smile, all the while swearing in his head. He hadn’t offered his own name. Hell. Hell.

His training partner pulled on a pair of large, purple nitrile gloves with a satisfying snap, then grinned. “Greenie!” He said excitedly as he pointed at Thomas’ hands.

“Huh?” Thomas looked down at his own gloves, a green latex pair.

“You’re a double Greenie! Adorable.” The man laughed.

“How is it adorable that I’m _not_ allergic to latex, unlike some people?” Thomas shot back with a brief smile. They hadn’t worked together before and he wasn’t sure how far he could push this guy, who looked fairly beefy and no-nonsense.

He snorted and gave his gloves another snap. “It’s not an allergy, it’s a fashion statement. I happen to look amazing in purple. Anyway, you work here already, right? I feel like I’ve seen you before.”

“Yeah,” Thomas replied. “I normally do the morning shift but some home stuff changed so I need to do nights now.”

“That’s rough. Lucky for you though, you’ve got the veteran night shifter here to show you the ropes,” The man grinned and gave himself a double, purple-gloved thumbs up. “You’re safe in these hands.”

Thomas snorted as well. “How different can it be at night? It’s just day work with less people and more caffeine.”

Minho gave a gasp, as if mortally offended. “Ohhh you’ll learn, Greenie. You’ll learn.”

Thomas grinned back at him, starting to get a feel for the guy and liking him so far. “Why don’t you show me what you got?”

Minho laughed, checked they were both signed in on the fire ladder and picked up the schedule. “Follow me, Greenie. You’re my new duckling.”

Thomas obligingly followed him through to the lab, as yet unimpressed. It was the same lab he was used to during the day, after all.

“First thing you need to know,” the man explained as they walked, “Is that everything breaks at night. These babies are sensitive, you gotta have your finger on the pulse, ‘cause they’re tired and cranky from working hard all day. So treat ‘em right and treat ‘em nice. This one here’s my girl Carla.” He fondly patted the side of one of their blood analysers. “She’s generally alright to get going again after some system washes, fiddling with her tubes and a good old data clearance. But this one here. Oh boy.” He shook his head and made a fist at the identical analyser on the left. “This rough old fellow is Jeremy. Jeremy and I often need to have words, ain’t that right?”

Thomas sniggered at the goofy way his instructor was talking, but didn’t interrupt. It was kind of funny, if extremely dorky. But then, he was a lab analyst like Thomas. It kind of came with the territory. _And_ he was on the night rota week after week. No wonder the guy was weird, if he was used to rolling around the lab on his own at night. His face was animated as he chatted and explained about Jeremy. Thomas abruptly realised he should stop staring at the man’s happy expression and pay attention to what he was saying.

“…gotta rough him up and get out the calibrators, have some harsh words and tough love. Jeremy’s an asshole once he breaks, but he generally runs smoother than Carla when he’s working. Any questions, Greenie?”

“Um. Not so far. They’re just One and Two to me,” Thomas replied smilingly.

“You just watch, as soon as one of them breaks you’ll change your tune, I swear to God these things gain sentience at night, like gremlins or something. No one ever believes me, but I’m okay with being misunderstood in my time. Anyway. Let’s see what lovely surprises Booking have got for us tonight.”

Thomas followed him round to the sample management area, wondering both how a guy on night shifts could work out regularly enough to get so broad and bulky, and also how to possibly ask the guy’s name without sounding like a giant douchebag.

The guy looked at the racks upon racks of half-labelled blood collection tubes sitting in foam holders, smaller tubes with different coloured tops lined up in front for coagulation studies, and the rest of them in racks for brief analysis before sending on to the chemistry labs next door. He frowned and put his hands on his hips.

“Gally, you dick,” he muttered to himself, looking at the messy labelling and untidy tubes everywhere, and checking against the list in his hand.

“Who?”

“Oh, right. Gally is the ray of sunshine who does the night shift in Booking upstairs, I guess you’ve never met him. The day Bookers are generally pretty nice from what I’ve heard, let you know if there’s a sudden batch of Urgents or any delays.”

Thomas nodded; generally things ran as smoothly as could be expected in a hospital, what with all those sick people and whatnot. They occasionally had rushes on particular samples, where the doctors would need to know results within maybe an hour to inform the course of treatment, but they usually were warned beforehand, as the man said. And even if not, there were always a lot more staff in the lab during the day to cope with it.

“Must be nice. Anyway, Gally hates doing the night shift so he doesn’t communicate very nicely, most of the time. And I don’t think he likes me very much.” Thomas’ training mentor pulled a comic pout, blinking up at the ceiling as if about to weep.

“I’m sure you can work through it,” Thomas said bracingly.

The man gave a huge sniff and grabbed his shirtfront with a brave expression. “I try and work through the heartbreak as much as I can. But it looks like he’s in a right mood because to me, these look jumbled and way more than on the list, and the list is pretty huge already if you hadn’t noticed. Ugh. What a fun night for us, eh?”

“Super fun,” Thomas said dryly. “Do we flip a coin over who gets to sort all this out?”

“Nope, I need to go do evening metrology and calibration on everybody in there, good luck,” He sang as he walked quickly away.

Thomas rolled his eyes but had to smile as he took a seat and started sorting through all the bits of paper with lab reference numbers and barcodes and patient information, trying to match them to the haphazardly-labelled tubes with mixed success. After about ten minutes he ended up with two areas on the bench – one area with neatly stacked and re-labelled tubes and documents, all perfectly legible and sorted into priorities, and another area with a neat little row of tube holders with conspicuously missing samples, ones with no labels, ones with incorrect volumes for the work that needed to be done, and ones that had incomplete paperwork. He shook his head, wondering at why this Gally person hated his job so much.

Then he realised he needed to attract the other man’s attention, but the guy was shoulders deep in Carla – not a phrase he’d ever imagined himself thinking – and Thomas didn’t know how to alert him without startling him into hitting his head or nudging wires. Ideally, he could just call the man’s name. Ugh.

“Hey, purple man,” He called, wincing a little even as he said it. It seemed to do the job though as the guy grunted an affirmation. “I’m done with these.”

“Cool,” The guy replied, his voice muffled in the innards of the analyser. “Can you help me with this?”

Thomas snapped on some fresh gloves and sidled in beside him. “What’s the issue?”

The man launched into a long explanation of how Carla had failed her quality controls over and over and he just couldn’t get her calibrated. Thomas nodded along thoughtfully, trying to remember a time on the day shift when the machines had broken in this way. He was hard pressed to recall a time, though.

“…I told you these things were sentient. They’re playing up ‘cause there’s a new kid in the lab.”

Thomas grinned. “They know me, I’ve had my hands in them for months during the day shifts.”

The man gave another comical gasp, making Thomas laugh. “Carla! You saucy minx, I thought these hands were the only ones for you!” He waggled his gloved fingers at the various bits of tubing he was examining for blockages and kinks. “So much heartbreak in one night. What’s a guy to do?”

“I dunno man, maybe do a backwash?”

“Gross,” the man grinned, but carefully extricated himself. Thomas held the panelling clear of his head as he wiggled out. “That’s a good idea though. Yeah, let’s try that. Hey, what was your name again?”

“Thomas.”

“Cool. Thanks, Thomas. Can you start running bloods on Jeremy? He’s working fine. I’ll keep on with Carla.”

“Sure.” Thomas waited for the guy to introduce himself and bit back a frustrated sigh.

Twenty minutes later, the guy let out a celebratory whoop. “Carla, my darling, the only girl for me. We’re finally ready.”

“Nice work, man,” Thomas smiled, keeping half an eye on Jeremy’s read-out.

“Thanks, brah,” the guy replied with a snort. “You can call me by my name, y’know.”

Thomas frantically thought of what to say.

“My name is Minho.”

“Oh thank fuck,” Thomas breathed a sigh of relief. “Hi Minho, I’m sorry I forgot your name.”

Minho laughed, a full belly-laugh that would normally be way too loud in a busy lab. With just the two of them, if filled up the space nicely. “No problem, Greenie.”

-x-

Thomas eyed the rows of finished samples being spat out of the analyser. Though maybe ‘spat’ was too forceful, implying too much speed. He was pretty sure something much closer to constipation was happening, and was trying to think of a joke for it when Minho came over, launching himself on a roller chair from the other side of the lab.

“Thomas!” He announced grandly with a grin like the sun coming up. He brought himself to a stop by Thomas’ workstation. “Validate me.” He smacked a thick pile of analyser print-outs into Thomas’ desk.

“You have beautiful eyes,” Thomas deadpanned as he took the first sheaf and began flicking through, scanning them expertly for any missed values or errors, checking Minho’s work while he laughed and spun on his chair.

“Thanks, man.”

“Mmhmm.” Thomas finished the first sheaf and looked around his desk. “Minho, did you take my stamp again?”

“Probably. Mine keeps dropping the last line.” He launched himself again to his desk, then returned with a whoosh. “That’s 49 cents, please.”

“What?” Thomas was busy in the next report, after ritually stamping, signing, initialling and dating all the relevant pieces of paper.

“Postage. For your stamp.”

Thomas slowly looked up. Sure enough, Minho was wearing a look like a little kid convinced he was the first person alive to think of ‘why did the chicken cross the road’.

“Though I guess it was expedited delivery. Maybe two dollars, then.”

Thomas tried very hard not to laugh. It was such a bad joke. He tried very, very hard. To counter the urge, he looked at the long pile of finished racks of samples waiting in the out tray of the analyser.

“Thanks for the quick delivery. It was super urgent – work’s really racking up.”

Minho groaned and slapped a hand to his forehead. “ _Thomas_ , that was terrible.”

“We can’t all be punning masters.”

“You think I’m a master?” Minho grinned proudly.

“That’s a comparison error.”

“ _You’re_ a comparison error,” Minho muttered sulkily.

“What? No, I meant on here. You missed the white cell perox versus baso error flag.” Thomas smiled and showed him the printout.

“Ah, damn. Which sample was it? Okay, I’ll run it again. Thanks, Thomas.”

“Anytime.”

-x-

“Hey buddy, can you find sample…” Minho listed off the unique laboratory reference number and Thomas sorted through the racks to find it.

“Got it.”

“Cool, slide on over a sec.”

Thomas wheeled himself to Minho’s side of the lab, tube in one hand and a small box in the other. “What’s up?”

“Can you double check for me the – what is that?” Minho raised his eyebrows. Thomas kept his finger on the generic glass slide he was inching across Minho’s desk.

“A slide,” Thomas replied. The corner of his mouth twitched. 

“Oh my god, you need to work on that.” Minho chuckled. “That was marginally better than the rack thing last week, though. I’m so proud.”

Thomas grinned and popped the slide box back in his pocket. “What’s the problem with this sample?”

“The platelet count is pretty borderline, and normally I’d just say it was variance, but the clump count is almost high enough to cause a flag and the ESR is a bit off. Can you check it for coagulation, if you don’t mind? The nurses from this ward can be a bit hit and miss about mixing the blood properly with the anticoagulant, and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last one from this batch. I’d do it myself but I’m up to my eyes in paper right now and I can barely see straight.”

Thomas eyed the multiple piles around Minho’s tiny arc of space on his desk; they were swamped tonight for sure.

“No problem.” Thomas pulled out a tube of thin wooden sticks from another one of his pockets. Minho kept calling him Mary Poppins but it was more convenient to have loaded-down pockets than a messy desk, in Thomas’ opinion. He broke one in half and held them like chopsticks before prodding them into the sample and stirring gently. After a minute, he pulled them out and held them up to the light while Minho flicked and scrawled as fast as he could through his paper piles. Thomas gently tapped and pulled apart the sticks, inspecting them closely. After a moment, he saw a few tiny red hairlike strands connecting the two sticks.

“By the hairs on my _fibrin_ ny _­-_ chin-chin,” He said in mock-amazement.

Minho looked up and laughed, pressure and stress lifting from his features. His eyes shone as he met Thomas’ gaze. Thomas’ stomach did a funny flop.

“Don’t be such a clot,” Minho replied, sniggering to himself.

-x-

Thomas moved his fingers deftly over the cell counter while his other hand adjusted the movement of the microscope stage, sweeping over the monolayer and counting each class of white cell. He grimaced at the number of clicks and dings the counter was making – this patient had a very bad ratio of cells, probably an aggressive infection or problem in the bone marrow and thymus. A tension headache was thumping behind his eyes from the strain of the microscopy work. He knew he should really take a break, but he had a huge stack of slide folders all awaiting review, and he needed to phone the nurses of a couple of patients with abnormal white counts and alert them. That would take a while, and besides, Minho was on his break and they couldn’t leave the lab empty.

He double-checked his numbers and stapled the cell counter sheet to the paperwork. With a resigned sigh, he dropped immersion oil on the next slide.

Minho walked back into the quiet lab and pulled on his coat and gloves, hiding a yawn in his sleeve. It was just gone stupid-o’clock and he’d had a short nap on his break. He was about to call out to Thomas when he noticed the grim set to the other man’s shoulders. He had an alarming collection of slide folders stacked around him and a frown harshly divided his forehead. He looked completely focussed and unhappy with what he was seeing.

Minho chewed the inside of his cheek and walked quietly around the lab, grabbing a couple of different sizes and types of gloves on his way. He checked there was no one else around and started his mini-project.

About ten minutes later, he tapped Thomas gently on the shoulder. The other analyst jumped and turned around. Minho had to smile at how his glasses were pushed up on his forehead and nestled in his hair like a tiara.

“Hey. Got a present for you.”

Thomas raised his eyebrows tiredly, but in interest. Minho pulled the gloves out of his pockets, blown up and tied like miniature balloon animals in purple and green. He set them on Thomas’ desk and smiled.

Thomas looked at his new petting zoo and had such a startled, touched look on his face Minho felt a lump come to his throat. Thomas looked so tired, but very charmed by the goofy little animals. He touched them delicately, as if afraid they would pop like real balloons.

“Minho… these are really cute.”

Minho shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “I thought they would be nicer for you to look at.”

Thomas cradled a little green peacock in his hands and smiled up at Minho, dimples creasing and his eyes almost closed from the bunching of his cheeks. “Thank you, Minho.”

An answering, shy smile came to Minho’s face. “It was no trouble. Are you going on your break? I can take over on the microscope.”

“Thanks.”

They swapped places and Thomas headed off. As he passed Minho, his fingers brushed along Minho’s shoulders. Minho smiled down at his lap, enjoying the thrum of his heart against his ribs.

-x-

“How are those slides staining?” Minho called.

“Slowly,” Thomas replied, eyes glued to the excruciatingly slow crawl of the automated stainer track, carrying blood films on little slides gradually along a horizontal plate while staining fluid, buffer and rinse agents flowed up underneath. Thomas knew that in theory, the automated stainer was much faster than human hands for high volumes of slides. But when you were waiting on it, the doubts always crept in.

“That goes without saying. Are they any closer to dropping? We need to get rid of this batch, there’s so much stacking up.” Minho said in a strained voice, looking over at the fresh delivery of tubes from Booking.

Thomas was about to remind Minho that they’d worked harsher loads before and everything would be alright, when the stainer beeped loudly, a light flashing up like an angry lighthouse. They both groaned.

“Stain pack needs changing,” Thomas sighed, and pressed pause on the track. “I’ll take care of it, you start checking the new arrivals.”

Minho jogged past as Thomas wrestled with the stainer to remove the empty reagents and empty the waste tray. He swore as the tray wobbled, splashing dark blue pigment over his gloves and labcoat. He managed the rest without any incident, but surveyed his hands and forearms sourly. He’d kept it near-spotless for months, and now this.

Minho passed him again on a quest for working pens and raised his eyebrows. “Wow.”

Thomas sighed dramatically and started wringing his hands. “Out, damned spot! Out, I say! – One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do it. Hell is murky! – Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? – Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.” He cast his eyes up to the ceiling for a moment, then noticed Minho staring, a strange look on his face.

Thomas coughed awkwardly and stripped off his contaminated gloves for fresh ones. “Sorry.”

“Dude.” Minho smiled.

“Shut up.”

“No, it was cool!” Minho enthused.

Thomas looked at him warily, still a bit embarrassed. “Well, anyway. Just. Forget that happened.”

“Nope, never,” Minho promised. “You will never get me to forget you just started monologue-ing Macbeth.”

“What if I got you really wasted?”

“…Well, maybe that would do it. But I’d still want to remember,” Minho smiled and leant his hip against the desk, watching Thomas prime up the reagents. “I have to warn you though, I’m an all-singing, all-dancing, all-hugging drunk.”

Thomas glanced sideways at him. “Oh yeah? That would be something to see alright.”

“You’ll have to take me out sometime, then,” Minho teased.

Thomas grinned down at his work, his cheeks feeling a little hot. “Mmhmm. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Minho’s eyebrows shot up and he watched Thomas for another moment, who kept his eyes resolutely on his work. There was a shy smile tucked away in the corners, though. Minho chewed his lip, grinning. _Fuck yeah._

“Alright then,” He said lightly, and pushed off the desk. “Let me know when you’re free, I’ll clear my schedule.”

-x-

“I hate parties,” Minho grumbled as he read through the email they’d all been sent, with the details for the department’s Christmas party.

“Why would you hate a work Christmas party with all the people you don’t ever work with? You shock me.” Thomas replied. “Open bar though.”

There was a pause.

“This is true,” Minho said slowly.

“You promised me an all-singing, all-dancing, all-hugging show,” Thomas grinned over at him. “I’m still waiting.”

“It’s not my fault our days off never match up,” Minho muttered.

“Well, maybe it would be a good excuse,” Thomas suggested, holding Minho’s eyes. “We could finally cut loose outside work.”

Minho wet his suddenly-dry lips as anticipation flared in his stomach. Thomas smiled back at him, affecting a casual demeanour. Minho swallowed. “Well,” He said quietly. “I’d imagined it would just be the two of us, y’know. The crowd might cramp my style a bit.”

Thomas looked down for a second, then met his eyes again with a mischievous grin. “We could always have our own party elsewhere, after a token appearance.”

Minho grinned back. “That sounds much better.”

Thomas laughed and leaned back in his chair, a bit flushed. “Such a loner, mister night shift. You really don’t mix very well, do you?”

Minho clutched at his chest in apparent horror. “Thomas! I am a haematologist, I’ll have you know I mix like a pro.”

Thomas shook his head with a fond smile as Minho seized two racks of samples and began simultaneously inverting them.

-x-

Thomas smoothed down the front of his shirt while over-amplified Slade blared throughout the tacky little hotel function room filled with his coworkers in varying degrees of costume and sobriety. His shirt was an odd, lime-green colour that matched his latex gloves but didn’t really do anything for his complexion. He was about to bail and run home to change into something less stupid when Minho slipped in the door with a vaguely disgusted look towards the D-grade DJ jamming out on the stage and a tight, dark purple shirt stretched over his torso. Thomas finished his drink and waved him over. He couldn’t help but grin like an idiot. Minho weaved through the crowd until they were stood next to each other.

Minho considered his shirt for a good few moments, obviously trying not to laugh. “Hey, Greenie,” He said eventually.

“Hey, purple man,” Thomas replied.

Minho laughed and plucked at his shirt self-consciously. “At least we both have the same terrible sense of humour.”

“Mmhmm. And you _do_ look good in purple.”

Minho grinned bashfully and rubbed through his hair before ordering a drink.

“Hey, um,” Thomas started, a little breathless. He got out a slip of paper and slid it towards Minho on the bar top. “Validate me?”

Minho opened the note curiously and felt the heat rise in his face.

_Subject ID: Park, Minho_

_Analyst: Murphy, Thomas_

_Equipment ID: Analyst, manual equipment only_

_Cell Count (Gen): Over the top, excessive cheese and puns._

_Differential: Amazing face. Wonderful hair. Awful sense of humour. Biggest smile I’ve ever seen. Great arms, holy shit. Very sweet human being._

_Reticulocytes: So much heart and love for life despite being a chronic night-shifter loner who can’t mix for shit, I see you._

_Errors: None found._

_System Flags: Equipment frequently falters, overheats and breaks down when analysing subject._

_Analyst recommendations: Subject needs to kiss the analyst. A lot. Not necessarily under mistletoe._

_Signed: Murphy, Thomas 18Dec2016_

_Validated: _________

Minho swallowed and fished a pen out of his pocket. He signed and dated the note, then handed it back to Thomas.

“I’d say that’s accurate,” Minho deadpanned. “Good work. We should definitely implement that.”

Thomas tucked it back into his pocket, grinning foolishly. “I think it’s an urgent matter, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

They stared at each other for a minute, too giddy and flustered to do anything about it.

“Oh my God,” Thomas despaired eventually and cupped Minho’s cheeks to kiss him soundly.


End file.
